How to Be a Complete Jerk

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the memoirist and novelist Bernard Cooper, born in Los Angeles (1951). His most recent book, The Bill from My Father (2006) is about a bill he received in the mail from his father itemizing every expense he had incurred on his father's bank account since the day he was born. The bill totaled 2 million dollars.

The thing that's hard to believe is that the dad would take the time to compile this list. It had to take hours and hours and hours and hours. And for what?

What a jerk.

A Total Scrum

The baseball season in the National League is coming down to the wire. With only 3 games left, everything is still up in the air. The wildest possibility is a five-team tie that would have to be resolved to determine the winners of the NL East, the NL West, and the Wild Card.

ESPN breaks down how silly this could get:

Among the fun possibilities if five teams in the East and West finish the season with the same record:

The San Diego Padres theoretically could play in Milwaukee on Sunday, in Arizona on Monday, in San Diego on Tuesday, in Philadelphia on Wednesday, back in San Diego on Thursday and then in New York on Friday.

Wow.

A Hard Word to Type

"Ethiopia"

Go ahead ... try it.

Lawn Mower

One of my favorite newspaper writers is Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post. I'm not exactly sure what his beat is - it's sort of science, sort of society, sort of whatever comes to his mind. He's sort of like a thinking man's Dave Barry. Anyway, today he wrote a good blog post about his lawn mower:

Being the recipient of an ego-boosting compliment was not something I anticipated when I took my mower to the hardware store to get the blade sharpened.

The mower didn't mean much to me, other than as an object of mild resentment. I used to have a gas mower that, while nasty and loud, left no doubt of its agenda. It was violent. It was a satisfying machine for whacking the fescue. But it had to be put to sleep earlier this year. That left me with my relatively new backup mower, an electric number given to me by a friend. It is a mild, modest device. As I've noted here before, it's like something a lady would use to shave her legs.

And it was literally dull in every way. Hence the trip to the hardware store.

So I'm waiting around. I can hear the blade being sharpened in the back of the shop. A grating sound, a high frequency industrial whine. Then the guy comes out of the back of the shop, and he's pushing my mower, and he tells me there was a lot of grass jammed underneath, and that the blade had certainly been dull, and then -- out of the blue -- he says, "That's a nice mower."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah," he said. "That's a nice mower. They don't make those anymore."

And then another guy agrees with him. A nice mower, and you can't find that model anymore.

I'm like: Yo.

I got me a hot mower!

This is like a new identity. I'd needed one. Now I'll be that guy: The dude with the mower.

Mr. Mower Man.

With this new identity comes the responsibility to share the magic. I'm going to have to spend more time letting the people out there, the citizenry, check out my mower. I'll have to take it for a stroll down the sidewalk, maybe through the business district. Strut my stuff. People might wonder why this man is pushing a mower through a pedestrian mall, or the food court at Tyson's, or whatever, but mostly what they will ask themselves is, "How can I get a mower like him?"

Haven't we all felt like that?

Nasty Stuff

"The Most Badass Whiffle Ball Pitching You'll Ever See"

Cool.

Musical Bottom-Feeding

Today I came across this page, reviewing the best finds that a fellow musical bottom-feeder has come across. That album by The Tractors sounds really good...

Only You Can Decide the Fate of This Baseball

The guy who bought the baseball that Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron's record has set up a website where we, the people, get to vote what he will do with the ball. The three options are:

1. Give it to the Baseball Hall of Fame
2. Brand it with an asterisk, then give it to the Hall of Fame
3. Put it on a rocket and shoot it into space

I think the "asterisk" option will win. Shooting it into space seems too...final. And handing it over to the Hall of Fame seems too...ordinary.

Besides, burning an asterisk into the ball would just have to irritate Barry Bonds. That makes it a good option right there.

UPDATE: This is already irritating Barry Bonds!

Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.

"He's stupid. He's an idiot," Bonds said. "He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid."

Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds' comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, "Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this 'stupid' T-shirt."'

I think Ecko is very smart. Apparently he's a fashion designer by trade, and in that business your name is your brand. This guy has bought tons of brand recognition by doing this.

We Have An Excuse!

We just can't help it!

Whether we’re looking for someone to date or sizing up a potential rival, our eyes irresistibly lock on to good-looking people, a new study finds.

Participants, all heterosexual men and women, fixated on highly attractive people within the first half-second of seeing them. Single folks ogled the opposite sex, of course. But those in committed relationships more often eyed beautiful people of the same sex.

Jon Maner (University of Florida) based his research on the idea that evolution has primed our brains to subconsciously latch on to signs of physical attractiveness in others, both to find a mate and to guard him or her from potential competitors.

Maner's experiments, which flashed pictures of attractive men and women and average-looking men and women in front of participants and measured the time it took to shift their attention away from the image, surprisingly showed little difference between the sexes.

"Women paid just as much attention to men as men did to women," Maner said.

Hmm ... in my experience I'm equally ignored by men and women. Apparently that means something. :)

Song Title of the Day

"Sick Hipster Nursed by Suicide Girl," by Film School.

Meteorites Make You Sick

Weird story:

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Things I Didn't Know About Ken Kesey

From today's Writer's Almanac:

In 1969, he moved to his family's farm in Oregon and spent much of the rest of his life raising cattle and sheep and growing blueberries. He joined the local school board and coached wrestling and taught a creative writing class.

His last novel was Last Go Round (1994), an old-fashioned Western based on the pulp fiction he'd loved reading when he was a kid. He died in 2001.

Ken Kesey said, "The trouble with super heroes is what to do between phone booths."

That would be pretty cool, having Ken Kesey on your school board.

Album Title of the Day

Calvin Harris, I Created Disco.

Dead Mean People Suck

For instance, Leona Helmsley:

Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will...

No one [in Helmsley's family] made out better than Trouble, who once appeared in ads for the Helmsley Hotels, and lived up to her name by biting a housekeeper.

She also left her chauffeur, Nicholas Celea, $100,000.

Twelve million for the dog, and only 0.83% of that for the chauffeur. Nice...

But at least she did this:

She ordered that cash from sales of the Helmsley's residences and belongings, reported to be worth billions, be sold and that the money be given to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

I wonder what sort of charities the trust invests in.

I Shoulda Been an Entrepreneur

I thought of this idea when I was about 13 years old.

Heck, I'd do it. I'm not proud.

For Sale: My Car in Flames

From the "no good deed goes unpunished" file:

We're trying to sell our car, a '96 Mitsubishi Galant. It's a great car - we've had it 5 years and it has run like a top. We're selling it only because the girls don't fit in the backseat anymore.

Anyway, our next door neighbor says he wants to buy it. Great. That's easy.

As I'm putting the paperwork together for him, I realize that the car is due for an oil change. I think to myself, "It would sure be a neighborly gesture if I change the oil for him before we make the deal." So last night after work I take the car to one of those speedy-lube places and they change the oil.

Except there's one problem: They take off the old filter but forget to put on a new one.

I get in the car, start it up and tell them, "That clicking noise wasn't there before." We shut off the car and they quickly spot the problem. Oil has gushed out where the filter is supposed to be - almost all of it. The car is clicking because it's running without oil.

They apologize profusely, put on a filter, refill the car with oil and send me on my way.

A few blocks later I ask myself, "What's that smell?" After another block or so I can see smoke curling out from under the hood.

I zip back to the speedy-lube and when we re-open the hood, smoke pours out as if Cheech and Chong had been in there instead of the engine.

They apologize profusely again, telling me that the smoke is coming from the burning oil that has splattered all over the engine and exhaust. They rinse it off as well as they can and tell me that, while they couldn't get it all off, there's only a small amount left and it'll just burn off as I drive the car. "It'll be gone by tomorrow," the guy assures me.

Okay, fine.

I decide I'll just take the car out on the highway and burn it off. I figure that at highway speeds the oil will burn off fast and the smoke will dissipate quickly.

But before I can get to the highway the car is smoking badly. As I'm sitting anxiously at a stoplight, two women pull up next to me and one of them yells, "Sir, there are flames under your car."

Okay that's it.

I say "Thanks," pull over, call a tow truck and have them tow the car to my regular mechanic. He assures me he can wash off the oil.

So here I am, trying to sell the car - a great, reliable car - and the damn thing is smoking and flaming because the guys at speedy-lube forgot to install a bloody oil filter.

I don't know what to tell my neighbor: "Oh, those flames and smoke? Ignore them - that'll burn off."

Sheesh.

A Story That'll Break Your Heart

And it's about baseball, no less.

Bad Luck = Good Luck

I bought this new CD yesterday, "Sun Drenched" by Justin James. Never heard of the guy before - just a random purchase because it looked like a good summer album. Six songs in, it's pretty good. Reminds me of Jack Johnson - same sort of laid-back singer-songwriter-surfer ethic. (I'm guessing Justin James probably gets that a lot.)

Interesting story in the liner notes, though.

The guy didn't play guitar or write songs until he needed something to stave off boredom during an extended rehabilitation, after he nearly got his foot bitten off by a tiger shark. He came close to dying, apparently.

But if not for sharky, the guy wouldn't have a career in music.

Bad luck = good luck. You never know where it's going to come from.

Check Your Green Beans

Here's your friendly safety advisory for the day. Check those cans of green beans because there's a recall due to a - gulp! - botulism risk:

Consumers should not eat certain brands of French-cut green beans because of concerns they could be tainted with the toxin that causes botulism, U.S. health officials warned on Friday.

The FDA said the affected Lakeside French-cut green beans are sold nationwide under the brands: Albertson's, Happy Harvest [Aldi], Best Choice, Food Club, Bogopa, Valu Time, Hill Country Fare, HEB, Laura Lynn, Kroger, No Name, North Pride, Shop N Save, Shoppers Valu, Schnucks, Cub Foods, Dierbergs, Flavorite, IGA, Best Choice and Thrifty Maid.

The warning applies to cans with the following codes:

EAA5247, EAA5257, EAA5267, EAA5277, EAB5247, EAB5257, ECA5207, ECA5217, ECA5227, ECA5297, ECB5207, ECB5217, ECB5227, ECB5307.

The green bean warning is unrelated to a recall last month of chili sauce, canned meat products and dog food made by Castleberry's Food Co.

Botulism is one of the most lethal toxins known, and only a tiny bit is enough to do you in. It attacks your nervous system, and if you don't get treated soon enough, you don't stand much of a chance. And even if you do survive, it's a long recovery. Very very nasty.

Russkies

So the Russians are claiming that the North Pole belongs to them because they sent a sub down to the seafloor and planted a flag there.

I liked the response of the Canadian Foreign Minister:

"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV television.

I also hope Santa files a lawsuit.

Song Title of the Day

"You! Me! Dancing!" by Los Campesinos!